Technically Speaking

An interesting article, found in the BBC news site last Wednesday, asks the following question: There are dozens of photo sharing websites out there, but one, Flickr, has caught the imagination of the global weblog community. Now it has been bought by Yahoo! So what makes Flickr unique?

I have been a member for some time now but only recently I have started posting images and getting involved with the community. Flickr is an addictive and time consuming website that is guaranteed to have something for everyone. Check out what the BBC has to say about it all.

Users can create a list of friends who also use the site - instantly building online communities through picture sharing. Friends can write a comment beneath your photos or even attach a discreet note to part of the image itself, turning the whole experience into more of a conversation.

This casual sociability is what makes the site so fun. Tom Coates, recent winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award for his weblog plasticbag.org, posts several photos every week from his phone and camera. “It’s not about taking artful shots,” he says, “it’s about capturing moments - things your eyes have got caught on - and doing what you’d do to a friend if they happened to be on the street with you, saying ‘check that out, isn’t that awesome’”.

But Flickr reaches beyond friends - its archive is open to everyone, so any stranger can see your photos, and vice versa.

While you can group your own photos into themed collections - perhaps a gallery of your holiday or of your pets - you can also set up, or join, themed groups. It could be a wedding, so guests can contribute their photos of the big day, or a public group devoted to pictures of your neighbourhood, your favourite hobby, or even objects (scooters, peeling paint, muscles…).

With so many photos on the site, how do you find them? Tags. When you upload a photo you can “tag” it with a few keywords describing the picture. Anyone can search for photos matching specific tags and create spontaneous collections of themed pictures taken by all of Flickr’s users. How about 21,050 flowers, 3,581 smiles or 764 photos of wind?

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That is about the extent of the site, but it is the people you meet and the things you see that make it all that more interesting. If you haven’t been to Flickr yet, go and check it out! Don’t be afraid to become a member and try it out. It’s free you know!

It looks like Yahoo has taken another step in arming themselves to compete with Google. It is now official that Yahoo has bought the online sharing service, Flickr. Along with their recent beta launch of Yahoo 360, a new blogging tool, their instant messaging, Internet radio and of course the search engine/portal, Yahoo may be sufficiently equipped to do battle. (Google has Picasa, Blogger, and the most popular search engine, and Gmail) But what exactly will Yahoo do to make them outshine Google?

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Flickr lets users upload digital photos from computers and camera phones, put together photo albums, and post photos to blogs, among other things.

Joanna Stevens, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, confirmed the deal Sunday but did not disclose the terms.

“We look forward to working with them for their innovation and product development across the Yahoo Network in the coming months,” she said.

Stevens said Flickr will remain a standalone site for now. The company’s employees, however, will relocate to Sunnyvale later this year.

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Yahoo and Google have many other services that they provide but the ones listed seem to be the big “Money Makers” right now. I think that the search engine is the main component for both companies and Google has control in that arena. Next would probably be email and instant messaging. Yahoo has the upper hand here, for the time being. Once Gmail goes public who knows what will happen, but Google doesn’t do IM. For online photo sharing, Yahoo has it, but Google’s Picasa software is pretty powerful. Over all I think that they are fairly matched and Google may have the people behind them for now. Yahoo has done a great job of positioning themselves and SHOULD be able to tip the scale to their favor. I will be keeping a close eye on this one.

It has been reported, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Buzzworthy, that Google is randomly giving out Gmail accounts to users of their search engine. The above image depicts a link that you may see that allows the user to sign up for an account. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, this is what Google has to say about the matter:

Since we launched Gmail in April 2004, we’ve been focused on improving the service, relying on our users to spread the word and invite others to try it out. The response has been great, and now we’re ready for some more Gmail users. …

As we make room for more Gmail users, we want to first extend invitations to Google users. We’re still working to make Gmail better, so for now, we’re just inviting a small number at random. Looks like that’s you! We’re really excited to share Gmail with you and we hope you like it.

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Here is a hack for those who aren’t faint at heart at electronic customizations. Hack A Day has found information that will allow you to take your iPod to the 75000 song capacity mark. By removing the original hard drive and installing an after market hard drive you can significantly boost the storage capacity of an iPod. The after product doesn’t look all that pretty but I’m sure that if this catches on someone will build a nice little leather case that can hold it all together and look halfway decent. This is a major enhancement so be sure you know what you are doing before you start it.

Source: Hack A Day

A current light weight version of Mozilla’s browser, named Minimo, works only on Linux-based PDAs. A new version, that will work on the Window’s CE OS, is nearly complete. There are still some integration issues that need to be dealt with but all-in-all the port has went well. If you are interested in trying out the development builds you can do so here. The final build may not be ready for some time but pictures of the browser in action have already started circulating the web.

“The first release to the general public will be in about four months,” he said. “We are hoping to be producing nightly builds starting at the end of March. Nightly builds are…for quality assurance and those that live a bit dangerously.”

Minimo developers have already completed basic work on the project, but they are looking for extra developers to work on improving the user interface, Turner said on the MozillaZine news site.

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Photo Source rebron.org. You can find links to more MiniMo images at this site as well.

Sony is making them thinner and thinner. This model isn’t due out til May but I’m sure it will be pretty well received when it arrives. This 1/3 inch model will hit the market with a $500 price tag. Check out the press release…

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The three robot teams, two from the US and one from Switzerland, brought their robotic arms to Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices Conference in San Diego, California. Each team was hoping to have there devices stand up to the world’s strongest man in a wrestling match. So in moving towards that goal, they started the contest against a slightly weaker opponent, a 17-year-old girl named Panna Felsen. Although Panna calls herself a weakling, she managed to defeat each arm in a matter of seconds.

Despite her lack of strength, training and technique, she was able to conquer the first arm, developed by Environmental Robots Inc. from Albuquerque, New Mexico, in just 24 seconds. Following this, and a pep talk from an arm wrestling expert, it took her just four seconds to beat the second arm and three seconds for her to win the last match.

Two champion arm wrestlers oversaw the matches to ensure that standard arm wrestling rules were observed. The three robot teams are now trying to work out what went wrong.

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It is obvious that the new technology used in this contest needs to mature a bit before the ultimate goal can be reached. EAP artificial muscles, the technology used in this contest, are special plastics that can change shape when activated either electrically or with chemicals.

Nevertheless, the drive to develop EAP artificial muscles is unlikely to be deterred by this setback because of the need to overcome the current limitations with existing actuators and motors.

Electric motors tend to be too weak, while hydraulics and pneumatics are too heavy for use in robotics or prosthetics. EAPs, in comparison are lightweight, quiet and capable of energy densities similar to biological muscles.

The three robot teams, two from the US and one from Switzerland, each used different types of EAPs for their arms. The Virginia Tech group had three sets of chemically activated muscles acting on the shoulder joint, triggered by hydrochloric acid which caused the EAP strands to contract. Unfortunately, as it turned out, it only started to work a few minutes after its match had ended.

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Andrea Alù and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have conceived a technology that may exceed the capabilities of the current sophisticated camouflage systems used today. Their concept involves using Plasmon waves, which will reduce the scattering of light when it strikes an object. That scattering of light is what makes object visible to the eye.

The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see objects because light bounces off them; if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn’t absorb any light) they would become invisible. Alù and Engheta’s plasmonic screen suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.

Plasmons are waves of electron density, caused when the electrons on the surface of a metallic material move in rhythm. The researchers say that a shell of plasmonic material will scatter light negligibly if the light’s frequency is close to the resonant frequency of the plasmons. The scattering from the shell effectively cancels out the scattering from the object.

For visible-light shielding, says Engheta, nature has already provided suitable plasmonic materials: silver and gold. To reduce the scattering of longer-wavelength radiation such as microwaves, one could make the shield from a ‘metamaterial’: a large-scale structure with unusual electromagnetic properties, typically constructed from arrays of wire loops and coils.

Alù and Engheta’s calculations show that spherical or cylindrical objects coated with such plasmonic shields do indeed produce very little light scattering. It is as though, when lit by light of the right wavelength, the objects become extremely small, so small that they cannot be seen.

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The idea is still in the theoretical stage but it appears to be sound from a physics standpoint. Also according to theory, the technology will work better on small objects, optimally, it will work best when the wavelength of the light is the same size as the object being shielded, which basically means ‘microscopic’ items. At this point the object can’t be shielded from daylight because it is made up of various light wavelengths, and the Plasmonic cover will work when it is tuned to one specific light frequency. The theory is new and is sure to change when it is understood better. So don’t rule out the possibility of having a cloaking device just yet.